


willow, willow, willow

by spacegirlkj



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: (but not in a way thats like..... tragic), Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, References to Shakespeare, basically it just follows viktor as a child to an adult, its gay, no one dies dont worry, prose, there ya go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-17 18:44:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9338069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacegirlkj/pseuds/spacegirlkj
Summary: There is a poem, a hundred or two years old.Let love no more boast her in palace nor bower;It buds, but it blasteth ere it be a flower.Viktor cannot remember how it ends.





	

**Author's Note:**

> deep inhale  
> the issue with writing character studies is that you have to wait for the series to finish for it to work. i started this around??? episode 8?? but had to scratch a bunch of it with developments after that  
> with further ado, please enjoy this character study of living legend viktor nikiforov~

December winds in Japan are cool, but it is nothing that Viktor doesn't already know. The smell of salt water fills his senses, leaves a tingle to his nose as Nocturne Op. 1 No.9 plays in the back of his mind. It’s been too long since he’s been to Japan, and Viktor finds himself drinking in the dancing snowflakes as he walks the streets back towards Yuuri’s home. He walks under the weeping willow trees, watches the snow fall down from the branches.

There is a poem, a hundred or two years old. 

_Let love no more boast her in palace nor bower;_

_It buds, but it blasteth ere it be a flower._

There’s a kind of idolized peace in solitude, in the vastness of the world when you’re the only one to witness. Viktor watches the cloud of air fog in front of his lips, mind blurred with thoughts that have yet to make themselves clear.

(They all bear a particular message, similar faces, the ones that have melded together when they visit him in his dreams. Viktor wants to wish them to stop, but he is too aware of the way he awaits them to arrive.)

He stands outdoors until his hands are red and raw, waits until the skin is tight over his bones, before shoving them back into his pockets. 

_Золото моё._ _My golden._ Discomfort lays in the pit of his stomach, swells bigger than the flower when it blooms. 

_Father,_ he thinks, _If you knew what I think._

—

Viktor is fifteen when he’s scolded for attempting a quad salchow. 

_Your body isn’t developed enough, idiot_ , Yakov says, _lectures_ in the kiss and cry. _Once you hit a growth spurt and your centre of gravity changes, you’re going to have to relearn all of your jumps, you’re going to hurt yourself, blah, blah, blah._ Yakov’s voice begins to sound a lot like that of the adults in Charlie Brown, slurred murmurs of annoyance and disapproval. Viktor allows himself a single moment of attitude, blows a stray strand of hair from his face and rolls his eyes before smiling wide for the camera in front of him. Yakov continues his lecture directly into Viktor’s ear, and once Viktor has finished entertaining the camera and fans on the other side, he flicks his ponytail and sends a smile over towards Yakov.

“But I landed it, didn’t I?” Viktor responds, eyes bright with the expectation of praise.

Yakov grunts in agreement. Close enough, he figures.

He wins gold as his final Junior World’s competition, and it’s enough for Yakov to let him off for the jump. He’s given a crown of roses, and a sense of pride at the realization that this is the thing so many people dream of. He can see the stares of adoration, of jealousy. It’s a lot for a fifteen year old to handle, the surreality of it all. Cameras flashing, men and ladies twice his age asking for interviews or autographs, the fact that he’s stopped three times in a coffee shop for pictures and congratulations.

He feels on top of the world, and yet, he couldn’t feel less real. He hasn’t seen his mother in half a year, and yet his heart doesn't ache. Winter refuses to leave, and neither does the feeling the echoing noise that moves through his ears.

—

When asked for his favourite course in school, Viktor always answers literature. He doesn't have a brilliant way with words, but he can tell stories with his programs and can dissect poetry to the core. It’s interesting, analyzing the meaning behind every word, every phrase. 

When he’s seventeen, Viktor reads a poem about willow trees and a woman who cannot be loved. The woman who sings it does so not knowing why, an act of foreboding that sends chills down Viktor’s spine. 

_The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,_

_Sing all a green willow, willow willow willow,_

_With his hand in his bosom and his head upon his knee._

_Oh willow, willow, willow_

_Shall be my garland._

In a second, he’s dreaming up music and steps, counting in his head and memorizing every line. His tutor smacks on the table to catch his attention, but the story of a woman without love keeps drawing him away from arithmetic or history. The moment he’s dismissed, he’s grabbing his skates and rushing back to the rink, back to training. The ice waits for him, smooth and slick and littered with scratches like stretch marks across tummies and thighs. Viktor is in love with an idea, infatuated with the concept of a love he’s never had. He makes dances for every story, incorporates gold and green into his performance, asks Yakov if he can choreograph his own gala performance. It’s his second year in the senior skating circuit, and he’s aiming for gold rather than the silver he received the year before. Yakov agrees, and Viktor wonders if it’s because he knows he’ll do it anyway or because he trusts him enough to make a performance his own.

Skating and poetry and dance and love all share the familiarity of art and stories, of unraveling a message and meaning and watching something come apart into a picture you’ve been meant to see. Viktor is not a poet, but he can write tales of adoration and the friendship between him and the numbness, can share stories of pain and rebirth crafted through blood sweat and tears shed on ice. Every jump stretches the muscles in his legs like rubber bands, makes them stretch and retract, every spin breathing the air out of his lungs. He keeps his head high, keeps his movement soft like clouds drifting, leafs rustling. 

It’s mournful in a way that feels familiar, like the buzz of drinking or self awareness of the fever creeping on. Viktor’s skin feels hot as he traces his fingers across the ice, feels like frost burn or brain freeze or sticking your tongue to a metal pole. He rips himself away from the ice, grits his picks and launches into the air, spins and soars before crashing down to earth. The landing is heavy, but he keeps himself upright, slides backwards and skids to a stop. 

The first time he nails a quad flip, there is not a single soul in the room. Moonlight pours through the rink’s windows, the AC whirls steady around him. Viktor cannot help the emotion that overwhelms him, can’t keep himself from falling forwards and dry heaving tears. 

He thinks, _willow, willow, willow,_ wipes his tears and realizes he is on top of the world.

He comes second again at the Grand Prix, wears silver and dances in the moonlight at the gala. The performance is bitter like the scent of sumac, bends and twists out his heart like the branches of the sycamore tree and tears himself open for the crowd to see. They commemorate him, say _Viktor Nikiforov, the boy with a future so bright we cannot see._ Viktor smiles, tries to keep the pain from turning to tears in his eyes. 

—

The Rostelecom Cup wasn’t a disaster, but it leaves Viktor with a sense of unease. He isn’t as good as a coach as he could be, but they’re both trying— they really are. He watches Yuuri’s free skate from an old TV in Hasetsu, with a well rested and very much living Makkachin at his side. He should be happy, should be overwhelmed with gratitude and grace, but instead he is left to shake the feeling of longing from his chest.

_Sing all a green willow_

_Willow, willow, willow_

Yuuri comes in fourth, and the look on his face is one part relief and two parts pain, something that wrenches Viktor’s heart from his chest and forces him to feel something other than the buzz of the alcohol he’s drunk. It’s his own fault for Yuuri’s loss, and he knows it. If he were there, it could’ve, would’ve gone better. The failures reflect him much more than Yuuri, shoe his own inability as a coach, as a lover, much more than Viktor is comfortable with.

It becomes very clear that the world will see his Achilles heel, will find his weakness and turn up their noses. Viktor is not used to the feeling of scrutiny. He has never been one to feel weak.

_I am dead to all pleasure, my true love she is gone._

He aches, and for the first time, it is not because he is lonely. He aches, for he is alone.

—

The realization that he is gay ebbs steady, doesn’t hit him all at once. He’s always known he doesn’t look at girls the way other boys do, doesn't fancy the women who ask him out and send him love letters via mail or kiss. It’s something that’s always existed, like the dimples on his back or the scar beside his eye, little things he’s only just noticed, a part of him he doesn't always see. It’s why he blushes when the older skaters compliment him, why he never worried about making himself better for a girl. It’s only when he’s facing the mirror at age nineteen, hair framing his face like a picture, under eyes hollowed out with blue from lack of sleep, that it becomes real, hits him in the pit on his chest, heavy like lead, ache oozing outwards through his blood. 

_Gay_. It sits on his tongue, metallic tasting, funny, strange. Cool, like the Russian winters, but damp like the spring fog. It feels like relief, in the most warm kind, and Viktor isn’t sure if that’s a good enough reason to smile at his reflection. He pushes the realization away, leaves it for another time, neglects the idea of indulging himself in life and love and laughter and kissing button noses under the guise of privacy and training. 

He’s kissed boys before, behind practice rinks, held their hands and ran from the rain to bus stations back in St. Petersburg when he was younger. No relationship is made to last beyond secret kisses and childish laughter of a high school romance, a summer fling. Viktor hasn’t been kissed in a year and a half, and the post-competition flirting with Christophe could barely count. It’s foreign, the desire to be wanted more intimately than an idol, a competitor, a diamond plated ring or a silver spoon. His small seaside apartment feels miles too large, feels as desolate as the arctic tundra and three times as cold.

Maybe, he wonders, the realization feels so funny because it is the first time he has ever said the word aloud. 

Viktor wraps a housecoat around his shoulders, ties his hair back with a stray elastic. He thinks of the woman and her willow tree, of a song so old its english is another tongue. 

—

He’s nineteen going on twenty, after just tasting silver for the umpteenth time at the grand prix, when his father says it.

“You know, maybe if you stopped with the girlish concepts you’d win gold at this competition,” he tells him.

There are a number of ways Viktor could respond. He could bite back with _if I’ve won Worlds and European with this, I can win the Grand Prix._ He could pout, could sneer and claim she has no idea what she’s saying.For some reason, he does neither, something inside of him switching on and keeping him completely silent. A hand reaches upwards, spins a lock of long silver hair around his fingers. Nervous twitch, endearing habit. Feminine. 

It’s the first time his femininity has been challenged outwardly, aside from the glances and questions, the jeers of childhood of _will you ever cut that hair?_ Viktor loves the way his hair reaches down his back, loves the glimmer and sheen of its silver tone, loves his slim build, has always embraced the ambiguity of figure skating costumes and dress. It makes him feel pretty, feel at home and beautiful with his skin. For the first time in nearly twenty years, Viktor questions if that is okay.

In retrospect, he knows his father may mean well. Viktor lives off of surprise, thrives off of the action of catching the audience off guard. It’s only natural he’d assume the long locks that twist around his face could be what holds him back, on natural he doesn't understand the attachment Viktor has for something as artificial as hair. As he tucks another strand behind his ear, Viktor supposes he can’t figure out why either.

He competes at Worlds, and his medal is as silver as the hair that whips around his head as he spins. The next day, he takes the kitchen shears to the locks and watches as they collect in the drain.

—

When Viktor wins gold at the grand prix for the first time, he falls to the ice and cries.

He knows it even before the scores are up, even before he’s made it to the kiss and cry. Roses litter the rink, red and blue and every colour of the rainbow, a melody of cheers erupting around him as Viktor struggles to catch his breath. Everything tastes like metal, tastes a middle finger to the universe at winning the only competition there was left to win. 

And Viktor laughs, with vigour and relief and exhaustion as he pulls himself up off the ice and bows, looks up towards the shuttering cameras and lights in the stands. There are words being shouted, _Viktor Nikiforov, living legend,_ but Viktor can’t be bothered to register anything despite the numbing glee that pours through him with every smile that splits across his face. Yakov has the beginnings of tears in his eyes, and Viktor doesn't hesitate to pull him into a crushing hug as they make their way to the kiss and cry for scores.

Yet, something feels missing, a face in the crowds, a kind of kiss to his cheek. Hair to braid or style for the banquet, a phone call of celebration from home. Viktor tries to shake off the feeling, chalks it up to the adrenaline crash and focuses on the weight of gold around his neck. Twenty-one years old, and a gold for every almost competition there is to win. A world record lying in his hands, in his grasp, the laughter and tears of his coaches and fellow Russian skaters surrounding him, the pride in his chest blossoming into something bigger than he could’ve ever imagined. 

And winning is exactly what it feels like, elation and the buzz of champagne, grinning at the bitter faces and displaying his gold medal like a battle scar to his parents when he arrives back home. His father embraces him, a sharp clap on the arm, says, _congratulations, my son_ , and Viktor wonders if this is what growing up feels like.

—

He meets Yuri Plisetsky when he’s twenty-three, after snatching back gold in the grand prix. The year before he slipped, let an older competitor surpass him by a point in the long program. Viktor tries not to be petty in the ways he displays his victory, on social media, a message that reads _reunited once again,_ in person, only bringing it up when it’s casual. He can’t deny the satisfaction that comes along with winning, but he can’t pretend it has the same thrill as it did when he was twenty-one. Skating bruises his pride and builds it back up, before taking a sludge hammer to the throne it built him and proving it was glass after all.

Maybe that’s why the young Yuri interests him. He’s twelve and lands a shaky quad in competition, wins by a landslide and reminds Viktor so much of himself that it feels like looking into a mirror. He doesn't miss the way Yuri’s eyes light up when he speaks to him for the first time, with an offer of a senior debut a few years in the future.

It’s the least he can do for the boy who takes every ounce of strength in a body small and growing and puts it into his art. He’s not hypocritical enough to be afraid of the repercussions, but figures that the bubbling in his chest at Yuri’s accomplishment must be prize. It doesn't occur to him that it could be fear of an ever evolving monster paralleling the success Viktor thrives off of.

Yuri joins Viktor’s training time slot the following year, and he takes it upon himself to watch as he skates. He’s so far ahead of the other’s high age, flexibility giving him a boost, inhuman drive and passion propelling him through the rigorous training that comes with being a Russian skater. 

“Your face is always so angry when you do your step sequences,” Viktor remarks as he skates by. “You’ll never win over the judges on technical skills alone. Don’t tense up as much!”

Yuri growls something at him, but Viktor only takes it as a compliment because Yuri immediately starts to work on the step sequence as soon as he looks away.Viktor lets himself be smug for half a second before going back to perfecting the new choreography for his short program.

He doesn’t have the time or energy to spare to be afraid for his crown. If he is still gripping onto the arms of his throne, he hasn’t lost yet. 

—

Viktor commissions an Italian opera singer for his free program. He’s anal about the things he wants, explaining the kinds of crescendos and accents he wants, give the man a story of loneliness and longing to work with. The piece he receives in return sings of wanting, yearning, the feeling of alienation from the ones around you. Stay close to me, the singer crones, and Viktor makes his movements so gentle he wonders if he is speaking about a lover he hasn't met yet.

The criticism of the program is all the same— he is too old, too experience, too loved to skate a piece about being devoid of belonging. They tell him _you are so beautiful, but how can you skate like you are alone when the world is at your feet?_ Viktor smiles kindly, laughs as if the interviewer has told a joke and takes a sip of his drink, stalls an answer and leaves her hanging in favour ofgetting back to practice.

The thing is, Viktor feels much more alien than they seem to think. He is more of a celebrity than an athlete, and more of an athlete than an artist for himself to be comfortable. As he prepares for his twelve season in the senior circuit, Viktor wonders if he can ever break the record he set years before. It’s a challenge, a goal that distracts him from the empty thump in hischest when he returns to a million dollar apartment alone.

—

One thing about being on top of the world is that it gets very lonely. Viktor breaths in the thinning air, reaches upwards and tries to touch the stars. He is so close, fingertips barely brushing their light, and yet so far, thousands of millions of miles between him and what he wants to attain. He’s won everything, worlds, the grand prix, olympics twice over. Records are held in his name, shining like the stars, so high Viktor wonders if he could ever reach them again. It’s a saying, a constant reminder every time he reaches to touch them— the only thing you can do at the top of a mountain is fall. Viktor’s hands are bloody red and raw from climbing, and he doesn't want to loose footholds on his kingdom yet.

It’s a stupid metaphor— Viktor’s always known that. He isn’t alone, not in the least. The banquet hall is filled with starry eyed people and skaters alike, laughter and conversation that slides down your throat as easy as the champagne. If it’s not the people, then at least it’s the gold, a fifth consecutive medal at the Grand Prix, that keeps him company. He wonders, if he is the most sought after man in the room, why the smiles on the faces in front of him feel too wide to be real. Viktor mirrors them, laughs on cue. A formula, almost mathematic. Greeting, congratulations, joke, laugh. Easy, predictable.

Viktor hates predictability. Maybe that’s the reason for his infatuation with the Japanese skater who is drunk off his mind.

Meeting Yuuri was pouring glacier water over volcanic coals, steam hissing as two opposites collide. He’s charming, downing champagne and dancing without a care in the world. It’s odd— even more so at the memory of him coming in dead last the day before. Yuuri grabs the Russian Yuri, slurs something about crying and bathrooms before tugging him onto the dance floor. Viktor watches, amused at Yuri’s false grumbles of annoyance as he fights off a smile and Yuuri’s look of carefree giddiness as he dances.

Yuuri waltzes, _tangos_ into Viktor’s life, leads him across the dance floor despite turning down a photo the day before. Viktor throws himself into Yuuri’s arms, let’s himself be dipped and spun and thrown like a doll in a pas de deux. Yuuri is drunk— his words of praise slur together, seep slow from his lips like molasses, languid and unintentionally sensual. Viktor is stunned at the boy who came sixth, the one who shook as he skated off the ice, the one with the step sequences that seemed to be his saving grace, the one who is clutching onto his shirt, pants tosses and tie slung around his head, begging to be coached.

It leaves him with the traces of laughter in his stomach, the feeling of taffy-pulled cheeks from smiling to wide and a feeling so foreign it hurts to recognize:

Motivation.

And the story writes itself, in passionate strings and step sequences that propel Viktor across the ice. He tells a story of a man sweeping him off his feet, of seduction and liveliness and chasing after the one you can’t have, the one that got away. Somehow, it still feels unfinished, even when he’s left panting after running through it for the millionth time.

A few months later Viktor is linked to a video, not the first time that hour. He’s brewing evening coffee— the drink of jet lag and hangovers that let him sleep until midday— and feeding Makkachin when his hums against the granite counter, metallic and empty through the otherwise silence. Out of anything if not curiosity, Viktor leaves the coffee to brew and falls onto his couch, opens his phone and watches a man whose face he’s yet to forget skate a routine he’s crafted from his own rib.

And the Japanese man skates a program that’s won Viktor gold too many times to count, skates it with love and passion and some kind of care that seems almost out of place. Viktor’s arms, his legs, are now his, are now reborn in a new story retold halfway across the world by a man he’s only once met. Yuuri’s eyes are filled with longing, with nativity and youthful lust for something more than a person, more than a feeling. It’s strange, oh so strange, to watch someone you can’t say you know and know his every move, and even stranger so that every breath still leaves him reeling.

He remember’s the man’s plea, drunk, albeit aw inspiring in his wide eyed glory. Viktor moves Makkachin from his lap, and reaching for his laptop. In ten minutes, he books a one way flight to Hasetsu, Japan.

—

Yuuri is more than what Viktor remembers, but that’s okay— he’s human, he expected this. It’s interesting, to watch how Yuuri’s mind works, how he holds onto his pride despite thinking himself low, how his anxiety lets him crumble and yet he can persevere taunts and criticism with ease. Viktor watches, studies him, _obsesses_ over the little quirks of his hands when he talks and how he jumps in surprise when startled. It’s his pet project, his grade seven biology class, dissecting frogs, finding out what makes them work. Yuuri is competitive, hates loosing, and is timid when he wins. He has diva streak, Viktor realizes, when he watches him snap one day at the ice. Multidimensional, fluid. Oh so very strange.

He’s also a virgin, which takes Viktor by surprise, but he rolls with the punches either way, talks about love and life as if he’s experienced it much more vivid than he really has. Yuuri seems to see through, a glint in his eyes and a tilt to his mouth that lets a sliver of doubt trickle through. Viktor changes the subject off love and to scenery quicker than he thought possible.

Surprisingly, they are level, despite being student and coach, first and sixth, celebrity and fan. Yuuri looks at him as more than an idol, lets his eyes follow Viktor’s movements when he thinks he isn’t watching.

(The thing is, Viktor is observant. He notices more than he watches, but doesn’t comment on the way Yuuri blushes when they sit together at the beaches. It’s clarification, of what they’re supposed to be, but somehow the actions of fingertips entwining speaks more than the words they share.)

—

Viktor knows he’s insensitive, knows that he can say things that break people just in tone. So it’s a painful leap, a chance of fate, when he tells Yuuri _if you can’t motivate someone else, how could you motivate yourself?_

The gamble pays off, and Yuuri wins gold after nearly breaking his nose against the boards. There’s a lot they need to work on, Viktor realizes, but he can’t lecture Yuuri on flubbed jumps and improper landings when they’re half way to either sleep or death and lugging their bags onto the train. Yuuri’s eyes are hollowed from exhaustion, movements weak and softened as is his limbs were too heavy to carry. Viktor watches as he nestles into his window seat,tucking his feet underneath himself. He smiles at the image of Yuuri’s glasses askew as he presses his head to the pane, jacket resting around his shoulders as if it were a blanket. For a reason Viktor cannot place, it makes his chest melt and freeze and boil all at once. It’s so foreign, so much like feeling the weight of the air around him that it overwhelms his senses enough that he does realize he’s still standing when the train lurches forwards and starts its path back to Hasetsu.

Viktor settles in the seat next to Yuuri, shrugging off his own coat and crossing his legs as he leans over to rest his head onto Yuuri’s shoulder. The latter tenses for a moment in surprise, but soon relaxes, allowing Viktor to rest his head heavy next to Yuuri’s neck. He can smell his shampoo and body wash, something reminiscent of jasmine and honey swirling together under Viktor’s nose. Yuuri shudders from Viktor’s breath against his neck, but continues to stay silent, unraveling his headphones from his back pocket.

“What’re you listening to?” Viktor murmurs, turning his head to watch Yuuri plug his headphones into his phone and slip one headphone into his ear.

“I don’t know the genre names,” Yuuri admits, cheeks blushing, eyes averting. “It’s calming, though. Synths, that sort of thing. Most of it is american music, independent, from when I was in Detroit.”

Viktor nods, lifting his head to face Yuuri properly. Their noses almost touch from the proximity, and every inhale of Viktor’s is an exhale from Yuuri. They’re close enough that Viktor can tell that Yuuri’s lips are chap, again, that the mascara from his performance hasn’t been entirely washed off. Yuuri’s eyes don’t shy away from his for once, bright and open and new in a way that Viktor can’t understand, in a way that feels like traveling and coming home all at once. Viktor feels his ears flushing, why are they flushing? as Yuuri fiddles with the cords of his earbuds and hands one to Viktor.

“Do you wanna listen with me?” He asks, voice quiet, shy, as if he was offering much more than just a sharing of song. 

Viktor eagerly accepts, nodding and taking the headphone from Yuuri’s hand, slipping it into his ear and settling back down against his shoulder. Distantly, he can hear Yuuri sigh, can hear the dull clunk of his head resting back against the window as the music starts, low hums of bass and steady beats that colours a greyish blue across Viktor’s mind, so much like the rain that pitter patters against the trains windows as they speed by. It’s green, lush and cool, mystical in a way that’s hyperreal and modern, like abandoned lighthouses and grocery stores at three am. Liminal, changing, numbing in their softened piano progressions and humming guitars.

It’s a gesture that not everyone would understand. He can feel the way Yuuri holds tension in his shoulders, as if waiting for confirmation that the music he chose is something that Viktor would like. In leu of a response, Viktor hums, a silent message, yes, I love it. Yuuri sighs, shifting into a position more comfortable before removing his glasses and placing them on the ledge of the window. The music continues on, steady and swirling in ways that hypnotize Viktor’s ears and bring his consciousness to heights that taste like snow and smell like the earth after rain.

Any artist who breaths music for their craft knows taste is as much yours as it is the makers, knows that what you enjoy reflects onto you as much as it does onto who created it. It’s an odd kind of trust, one that not everyone may be able to understand, but for two skaters who have grown up making friends with the melodies and figuring out how to make music with their limbs and the ice, it is second nature. It’s curious, how this feels miles more intimate than any kiss Viktor has ever shared, curious, how the simple action of sleeping on Yuuri’s shoulder as the music cascades through him feels as if theres a piece of him inside of Viktor’s hands.

Sleep comes easy as the songs melt into one another, as Yuuri’s breaths even out just like his, matching the rise and fall of Viktor’s own chest until the pair are fast asleep, forests and rainwater flying by in a blur of green grey and blue.

_The mute bird sat by him was made tame by his moans,_

_The true tears fell from him, would have melted the stones._

_—_

“The combination was sloppy,” Viktor tells Yuuri with a clap of his hands. “Again, and this time, stop thinking— you’re going to loose your momentum and pop the last triple.”

Yuuri nods without protest, skates back to the beginning of the sequence and runs through the motions again, lips mouthing the counts of eight until the jumps begin again. It’s an odd habit Viktor noticed early on, how Yuuri counts the measure of music when approaching jumps as if it is mathematical. It’s the technicalities that he often struggles with, and Viktor wonders if breaking the timing down into the formula is what’s causing the hindrance to his jumps. 

It’s a surprise, then, that Yuuri stops counting and throws his body into he movements leading up to the combination, slipping away from numbers and technique, dancing although there is no music that plays. Viktor watches, mind no longer that of a coach but of a skater, yearning to move with the musicality that Yuuri does as he preps for the jumps and launches himself into the air with such ease it looks as if he flies. One, two, three, four, Viktor counts, one, two, and one two three. Yuuri lands, albeit catching the wrong edge and having to lean the wrong way to keep himself upright, but either way the movements looks smooth enough to be considered progress.

It makes Viktor ache to skate again, to be on the ice and dance without measurements of beauty being attached to his every move. He wants to dance, like Yuuri does in the ballet studio when Minako grills him for not pointing his toes, wants to feel the coolness of the ice against his skin when he inevitably wipes out from not focusing on his edge. 

“Viktor?” Yuuri asks, pulling him down from the stars and back onto the rink. “How was that?”

It’s all Viktor can take to breath lovely and smile towards a perplexed Yuuri. He shouldn't be thinking of retuning to the ice as a competitor with Yuuri still here, his student, his coach. The ice has only drained his energy away, and Yuuri has given it back, leaps in bounds, in the form of a personality Viktor adores and success through his own talent. Viktor loves the ice, this cannot be denied, but he loves Yuuri more, doesn't he?

It’s a thought that makes him freeze midway through giving Yuuri proper feedback, makes his tongue turn to lead and words catch into his throat. _Is this love?_ he wonders, running a hand through hair too short and thin. Is the ache that stays prolonged in his chest whenever Yuuri looks his way, is that the culmination of feelings undiscovered and unknown that Viktor has never experienced? Is love watching him skate with grace and eloquence, is love the way he baby talks Makkachin and the way he lets Viktor hold his hand when they walk back from the arena together? Is love how he feels when Yuuri opens up about his childhood, laughing at himself and the fact that he adored Viktor as an idol he couldn't reach, and yet here he is? Is love the amalgamation of all these things combined, the ache in Viktor’s chest and the way his stomach bubbles and overflows like glasses filled to the brim with champagne or gingerale, nerves buzzing like a drunk even when all he’s been drinking is Yuuri’s voice and smile as they lie next to each other at the table?

It’s something he doesn’t understand is happening, falling in love, until he becomes aware, like blinking or breathing or the feeling of gravity tethering his feet to the ground. Yuuri is worried that he hasn't said anything other than a mumble about going back to practice, and the action of concern makes Viktor’s stomach broil hot once again in a way that makes in hard to think.

Love, Viktor decides, is the most wonderful feeling in the world.

—

He kisses Yuuri against the ice at the Cup of China, after watching Yuuri attempt a jump he’s coined his own. He comes second, they both do, but silver has never tasted so sweet and Viktor is so goddamn in _love_ with Yuuri’s look of pure adoration and amazement that he can’t stop himself from tackling him into an embrace and pressing their lips together. 

Yuuri is cold. That is the first thing he realizes. The second, of course, is the fact that his lips are still chap, and are moving against his own, slow and warmer than the ice that surrounds them. 

_Surprise_ , Viktor thinks, eyes softening like butter left out overnight as Yuuri looks up at him in adoration, adoration, something so much more loving and beautiful than the stare of a fan to an idol, so much more than any other look Viktor has ever received. Yuuri stares at him, enamoured with the way Viktor smiles, and Viktor, in turn, remains enraptured with every detail of Yuuri’s face this close.

And then they laugh, so hard it makes their sides ache from something else entirely different from the longing they have both so long felt. They laugh because on live, Chinese television, they’ve kissed, at an international sports event, surrounded by cameras and screaming athletes and fans alike. Yuuri shakes his head, and Viktor presses his forehead to the younger’s and hums in content for a single moment before sitting up and offering Yuuri a hand.

Love, love, love. It smells like everything warm and sounds like the colour rose. Beautiful, lovely, adoring. Viktor loves him— he really does.

—

Hasetsu is beautiful, as any seaside towns are. Viktor has always adored the ocean, if not for its beauty, then for the sounds of gulls and the waves crashing up against the rocks, reverberating and ringing through the salt water air like suspended cymbal rolls and gunshots in small rooms. Loud, like him, yet thoughtful, so much akin to the beaches in St. Petersburg.

And yet, it’s infinitely different. Yuuri tangles their fingers together, wet from the sand, and rubs the pad of his thumb over Viktor’s palm in a way that makes Viktor breath a sigh of wonder at how lucky he really is.

Hasetsu is much more lovely because of Yuuri, Viktor muses, in the most romantic way possible. Everywhere is better, he assumes, when the one you love is there beside you.

Even after the disaster of the Rostelecom cup,Yuuri sits beside him, drinking in the silence and comfort and love that comes along with reuniting after being away. The last few days have been a whirlwind of reporters and confusion and the feeling of detachment that has somehow become unusual.

“Why did you cut your hair?” Yuuri asks, voice clear and undiluted like the seawater in front of him. The question catches Viktor off guard, cuts clean through the silence of introspection they were breathing just moments ago. 

He realizes, somewhere inside of him, that this is one thing he’s never divulged. Yuuri knows of his childhood, of his stories of learning to skate and moving homes to practice competitively.Viktor has told him about himself, and in turn, Yuuri has shared, slowly, carefully, the intricacies and stories of when he was young. The question, of course, shouldn't make Viktor’s throat knot like it does, but his body refuses to listen. He becomes overly aware of the fact that there is no lie that would prove useful to tell, no backdoor out of sharing a detail so minuscule it shouldn't have him this fearful.

“Viktor?” Yuuri asks, touching his cheek, moving Viktor’s head so that they face each other. “If you don’t want to tell me—”

“No,” Viktor says, keeping his voice steady. “I want to tell you.”

Yuuri nods, watching as Viktor takes in a breath like the receding of the tide with eyes warm and rich like the earth from which flowers grow. It makes Viktor want to sit up straighter, makes him want to embrace Yuuri like starlight and soak up the ethereal beauty in his skin.

“Do you remember how it took me until the age of twenty-one to win gold at the Grand Prix?” Viktor asks. Yuuri nods. Of course he does. It makes Viktor feel a little less alien in telling the story, makes the weight no longer attached to his head feel less phantom.

“That year, in the car back from the competition, I was with my father. And, to be honest, I was being dramatic, a bit whiny, a bit prissy. I don’t know if he meant it in a mocking way, or if he genuinely thought it’d be good advice, but he asked me if the feminine concepts were the reason I was loosing.”

Yuuri stares at Viktor with widened eyes, but doesn't say anything, an open invitation to continue. Viktor swallows, spit thick as molasses.

“The thing is, none of my concepts were feminine, and none were masculine, and, to be frank, I don't think a program could be either or. But it was the way I presented myself, with long, beautiful hair, and passive movements in some of my skating, that must've given the illusion,” Viktor explains. “I never thought of masculinity as the rigid barriers that were out there, which is why when I learnt to skate, I loved figures more than hockey. Not to say I don’t like the restrictions of femininity, either, but it’s exhausting to be a young man and hear the constant pressure of conforming to one of the two. I never liked it, but when I lost Worlds with long, shimmering hair, I wanted a change. Hell, I was _desperate_ for a change, a surprise for the world to marvel at.”

The waves behind them crash and reach closer to their toes, tide inching closer as the moon pulls it to land. Yuuri’s eyes are not those of pity, but of understanding, and he licks his dried and cracked lips once more before pressing them against Viktor’s mouth, sugar sweet, far from bitter.

“Thank you for sharing that with me,” he tells Viktor, brushing his bangs from his eyes. “Do you think that your father really did dislike you being less masculine?”

Viktor shrugs. “Probably, I don’t know. It’s not really normal, is it?”

Yuuri purses his lips, taps Viktor’s cheek. “Just because it’s uncommon doesn't make it strange, Vitya,” he tells him, voice one thousand shades of cream and red roses. He pauses for a moment, drawing shapes and dragging fingertips over Viktor’s cheekbones before speaking again.

“Do you speak with your father often?” Unspoken: _do you miss it? Miss him?_

“No, but it’s always been that way.” Unspoken: _yes, in a strange kind of wanting._ Unspoken: _it kills me everyday to not have explained to him about us._

Yuuri nods in understanding that the topic is not one that Viktor wants to divulge more of, leans forwards instead with hands cupping Viktor’s jaw and kisses him so gentle, with the power of ahundred million tides, moving and ebbing against him with such care it makes Viktor melt into his hands. He does not feel weak, not even as a tears run silent from his eyes as the sky opens up with rain. It pelts them heavy and wet, makes Viktor soaked and shivering and cold, even as Yuuri moved warm against him, tongue tracing teeth as if they are rooms and homes he wants to know by memory.

Viktor feels the same way, and with the intensity of the storm brewing above the sea, kisses Yuuri like he needs him to breath.

—

Barcelona is beautiful beyond belief, and Viktor can’t believe he’s back. The last time he was here, he was still in the juniors and at one of his first competitions out of country. Now, he returns with more gold medals than fingers on each hands, as a coach rather than a skater, with the one he loves on his arm. 

The lights are amber, muted and mixing with the scent of joy and festival lights and cinnamon sugar from the venders around them. Viktor keeps their arms entwined as Yuuri points out the different types of pastries he wants to try, and Viktor teases him in return, says when you win gold, we can come back and get as many as you’d like. The proposition makes Yuuri blush rosé and light, makes Viktor slink his hand down to grab Yuuri’s tight in his own. For a moment, Viktor wishes he wasn’t wearing his leather Louis Vuitton gloves, wishes they were holding hands with bare skin against skin and nothing in between.

Then, before Viktor can make sense of what’s happening, Yuuri is pulling him into a jewelry store, and he’s being asked what kinds of metal allergies he has, and Yuuri is buying him gold wedding bands with initials engraved on the inside.

And so they stands outside a basilica in Spain, where the choir children sing their hunting song, and Yuuri holds Viktor’s hands and slips off his gloves, slips on the ring that feels like a tighter fit than his skin around his bones. Viktor doesn’t realize his hands are shaking until he tries to fix Yuuri’s ring onto his finger, taking three tries before it even slips on.

_Oh_ , Viktor thinks, because Yuuri is so gentle in the way he stares up at him, _I’m engaged._ The gold on his right hand feels better than any medal around his neck, feels more real than any victory he’s ever gotten from skating or the ice. He’s staring down at his hand with love, love and adoration for the man in front of him who looks as if the world has been lifted from his shoulders. 

Viktor surges forwards, tackles Yuuri into a hug, a laugh escaping both of their lips before either can say anything more. Yuuri stumbles under Viktor’s added weight, but soon straightens, looking up at Viktor and his eyes filled with amazement and wonder with a look of venerated admiration.

“Fiancé,” Viktor says, smile pulling his cheeks wide like taffy. “You’re my fiancé, Yuuri.”

Yuuri nods, biting his lip to hide the grin on his face. “We’re getting married, Vitenka.”

And Viktor feels himself bloom like lilies under the sun, feels elation swell in every cell of his being. With every bit of love he feels, Viktor kisses Yuuri, wraps his arms around his neck and holds him so close he prays he will never let go.

In the end, Yuuri leaves the rink with silver, but it’s the first time in his life that Viktor feels himself laughing with glee at the colour. Yuuri falls on top of him back in the hotel room, silver medal matching Viktor’s hair as if to jest. Viktor ignores it, pulls Yuuri down so that their lips meet. The only gold he will ever need is the one on his right hand, the gleam of gold against the ivory of his skin enough to make him remember he is _Yuuri’s_ , that Yuuri is his.

With every kiss and moan and trace of fingertips along hipbones and ribcages and the mole above Yuuri’s knee, Viktor falls more and more in love with the moment, feels closer and closer to Yuuri, feels like somehow they know each other enough that words don’t mean as much as the glances and the way Yuuri holds his hands tight.

The next morning, Viktor wakes with nothing but sheets and Yuuri’s arms around him. For the first time in years, Viktor picks up the phone, dials a number he needs to double check is right three times before calling.

The tone rings thrice before it’s picked up. The voice on the other end of the line is warm, low, thick like brandy and the same since the last time Viktor heard it.

“Vitya?”

Viktor smiles. “Hey, Dad.”

—

Extensions are a gift from God.

If he were being actuate and not clouding his words in hyperbole, they’re technically a gift from Yuuri, but either way, it doesn’t matter. As they walk hand in hand back from the salon, Viktor toys with the long silver stands that now lie against his back.

Long hair is heavier than he remembers— thicker, too. It’s not as long as he used to have it, but it’s plenty longer than it used to be, reaching down his back and swirling behind him in the wind. Yuuri smiles as Viktor shakes his head in disbelief, in awe with something so small he didn't realize he missed so much.

That night, Viktor lets Yuuri braid his hair with nimble hands, humming as they run through the strands and pull them away from Viktor’s face. It’s soft, intimate like sharing music on a train or kisses by the ocean or a drunken tango with someone you’ve never met. Viktor imagines his seventeen year old self skating figures alone in an empty arena, imagine telling him _you will grow up not knowing love and find it halfway around the planet,_ imagines the look of disbelief on a decade younger face with an odd kind of loneliness resting in his eyes. 

_Take this for my farewell and latest adieu…_

_Write this on my tomb, that in love I was true…_

For a moment, he cannot even remember how the poem ends.

**Author's Note:**

> little things:  
> the poem referenced is titled the willow song, and is most notably used in shakespeare's othello. although its original meaning and context are much different, you can apply what you want to the story  
> thank you for reading!!!! comments and kudos are always appreciated, and let me know if you want me to write more yuri on ice in the future!!!  
> as always, my tumblr is spacegaykj~


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